So, you think you’re one pretty bad dude riding that Vespa, Kymco or Honda scooter around town, eh? How about putting your bike where your braggadocio is? The first annual Motor-Scooter Land-Speed Trials are taking place on El Mirage Dry Lake on November 21. You have until October 22 to submit your application to enter the event. Bikes ranging from 50-500cc are already entered. Some with sidecars, even some electric scooters will be vying for the title “World’s Fastest Scooter.”

Alan Spears, Scootermeister for the Motor-Scooter International Land-Speed Federation in San Diego, hopes to make this an annual event and has attracted several major scooter manufacturers and dealers as sponsors. You can access the pre-registration form online at the federation’s website, and be sure to read the official racer’s handbook before entering. The rule book is also available on the website in pdf form. A partial list of entries is posted on the forums at LandRacing.com, and is being constantly updated. Alan is also answering any questions you might have on that forum.

Even if you can’t get your scooter race-ready by then, show up to support the racers. This event should be a total hoot, with little chance of any serious injuries, we think.

Seventy years ago, hot rods existed for but one purpose — to go fast. Stripped down, hopped up, however equipped, they simply allowed a regular Joe to break the bonds of time and space, especially when run flat out across the dry lakes of the Southern California desert.

For that purpose, and to keep regular Joes from running their rods flat out on city streets, the Southern California Timing Association formed in late November 1937, but then waited until May 15, 1938, to hold its first speed trials at Muroc Dry Lake.

In spirit, little changed between that day and this past weekend, when the SCTA celebrated the start of its 70th year of racing with even more land-speed racing. Sure, the venue has changed to the El Mirage Dry Lake, and the cars have grown more technologically advanced and thus faster, but the goal remains the same — to drive your hot rod as fast as possible, facing only the timing equipment and, if you’re unlucky, the wind.

More than 150 entries — 100 cars and 52 bikes — showed up Saturday and Sunday, with the fastest — Fred Dannenfelzer in the B/BF Lakester — recording a 292.331 mph pass. According to the official statistics, 27 records fell over the course of the weekend, though none of them over 200 mph, which would qualify the driver for the coveted 200 MPH Club.

As Jim Miller of the American Hot Rod Foundation noted, Bonneville had just as many entries not too long ago, “so I guess you could say land speed racing is alive and well.”

The next SCTA event at El Mirage takes place June 22.

(This post originally appeared in the May 22, 2008, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)